In February 2025, a claim that the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stopped an annual payment of $2.6 million to former U.S. President Barack Obama received tens of thousands of views, with many appearing to believe it.
The claim, originally posted (archived) by Facebook account America's Last Line Of Defense, said Obama was charging taxpayers for "royalties associated with Obamacare." It then spread to X (archived), where one post received more than 66,100 views as of this writing. The full text of the Facebook post and original caption were as follows:
He's been charging the taxpayer for using his name, even though the actual name of Obamacare is "The Affordable Care Act."
DOGE stopped an annual payment to Barack Obama for $2.6 million for "royalties associated with Obamacare"
He's been collecting it since 2010, for a total of $39 million taxpayer dollars.
As of this writing, the post had received more than 3,300 reactions and users had shared it more than 6,500 times.
Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, there was no evidence that DOGE cut off an annual payment to Obama, nor that Obama was receiving such an annual payment. Like all former presidents, Obama does get an annual pension that is unrelated to the Affordable Care Act, which is informally known as Obamacare.
The rumor about the U.S. government owing Obama royalty payments originated with The Dunning-Kruger Times (also known as "America's Last Line of Defense," or ALLOD) — a website and social media account that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. Its About Page states:
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical.
Besides a watermark on the actual image of the post that indicates satire and says "nothing on this page is real," the bio of the site's Facebook account also states:
The flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery and propaganda for cash.
Nothing on this page is real.
The fictional story spread as DOGE continued to make headlines for cutting funding of U.S. government programs and mass firing of federal employees at an unprecedented pace.
The Dunning-Kruger Times has a history of making up stories for shares and comments. Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims stemming from the site in the past, including the assertion that U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi's vineyard received $14 million in USAID funding and a rumor that half the fire trucks in Los Angeles are electric or take 10 hours to recharge.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.